2024 Advent, Day 1: I Fully understand why this book is a classic. It is very well written and the themes remain ever relevant. Would have given 5 stars except that I just simply die not like any of the characters (for example: I get strong #boymom vibes and MC isn't even the mother of a son). It was actually so bad I almost knocked it down to 3. Still, good book, excellent themes, awful people. 4 stars ( )

A richly detailed story about an unhappy woman living in provincial France. Flaubert achieves an impressive balance of making Emma Bovary both despicable and sympathetic. Though Emma's experience is at the heart of this story, the background characters are compelling as are the descriptions of life in provincial France... balls, fairs, public amputations... good times! ( )

February book club: AM
The introduction said it best when it said:
"So, dear reader, if you are a woman, don't expect to see yourself in these pages; if you are a man, don't expect this book to teach you anything about women"

This book was awful. The only reason this book gets a star at all is because a) I have to.... and b) the introduction. She does a better job explaining the character than the author EVER did. she touches on the realities of being a woman in those times.

The part of the book that surprised me, and the introduction doesn't discuss it to much, is the first affair.....that it is almost rape. Let me set this up: He leads her off all on their own by horseback very far into a forest and fields near no one else
then, he leads her away from the horses. Then he makes her walk and walk. She is short of breath and becoming disoriented and she wants him to take her back to the horses because she can't remember how to get back to them.
It's at THIS point that he starts to kiss her hand and cheecks. He starts telling her that he wants her and loves her. She fights him at first and starts begging again to be taken back to the horses.
This is also the male of the story that decided "he would have her". I coudln't help but wonder if any women, in those times or now, would feel like they have the option to say no and go home.....

Needless to say, there are plenty other classics. Skip this one, move on to the better ones!!! ( )

Marvelous as always. This time I sided with Charles. ( )

***NO SPOILERS***

Gustave Flaubert’s beautiful way with words can’t compensate for Madame Bovary’s lackluster tale of Emma Bovary trapped in an unhappy marriage to boring Charles. It sounds like a soap opera--this premise that has been explored before--but unlike a soap opera, Madame Bovary lacks what makes soap operas so watchable for so many: drama and tension. Here the marriage is the focus, yet strangely, Flaubert never honed that focus nor did he keep the focus on the marriage for much of the book. Madame Bovary wanders off on numerous tangents--even opening on a tangent--that have no bearing on the plot. This makes for an uneven reading experience. Just when the main story involving Emma and Charles heats up, it switches gears to focus on an agricultural fair or soporific discussion of club feet.

The story’s biggest offense is its direct telling. The union between Emma and Charles is an unhappy one because Flaubert says it is. Emma falls in love with her lovers and they her just because; the actual falling in love is never shown. Similarly, Emma is unhappy with Charles simply because, according to Flaubert, Charles is dull. This is a story long on exposition and short on showing. Dialogue is scarce. Action is languid, with no urgency. There’s no hook.

At no point does Madame Bovary pull readers into the heart of the story and hold them right there. This is what happens when the couple at the center of the story isn’t well drawn. Flaubert sat down to write a story about a woman in crisis, whose marriage is a failure, whose husband she finds inadequate. This premise has so much potential for drama--but not if the two main characters are mere outlines. Flaubert shined the spotlight on Charles so infrequently that it’s hard to get a sense of him outside of what he does for a living; he interacts little with Emma except to fawn over her. Emma is insipid, self-absorbed, unsatisfied, and depressed, but this is all there is to her. These aren’t characters with life. Put them together, and they simply stand beside each other limply. There’s no being gripped by the mounting tension and drama as husband and wife slowly realize their marriage is disintegrating.

Nevertheless, the story is, at least, a good portrait of depression and despair. This focus may exasperate some readers, but Flaubert depicted the depth and emptiness of loss deftly--and he did so many times throughout. Some may complain this lends a sulky tone to Madame Bovary, and it's true that there are long, angsty (maybe melodramatic) passages; however, because of the care Flaubert took with authenticity, here Madame Bovary is shot through with realism.

The novel is most impressive for its writing, which is straightforward and accessible while also beautiful at times:

. . . the fiery glow that had reddened her pale sky grew gray and gradually vanished. In this growing inner twilight she even mistook her recoil from her husband for an aspiration toward her lover, the searing waves of hatred for a rekindling of love. But the storm kept raging, her passion burned itself to ashes, no help was forthcoming, no new sun rose on the horizon. Night closed completely around her, and she was left alone in a horrible void of piercing cold.

(See also the saved quotation below this review.) This is a review of the Francis Steegmuller translation, an excellent translation (save “innocent of stockings” for “barefoot”) that preserved Flaubert’s mastery of words. This is where Madame Bovary’s verve lies--in the words, not the story.

On the flip side, excessive description loses readers while once again taking the story down an annoyingly tangential path. In particular, Flaubert lovingly described his characters’ clothing and appearance, and landscapes received only slightly less attention. This could be chalked up to scene-setting, but it’s hard to argue how the number of flounces on a dress is relevant (or is even interesting). With the large cast of characters being mostly bland and extraneous, it looks like Flaubert hoped vivid descriptions of appearance could stand in for vivid characterization. In short, Madame Bovary’s artistic writing is what takes the breath away, not the story, which sounds more scandalous than it actually is. ( )

I really enjoyed reading this. It may not be as quotable as I've thought it would be, but it was a good read. Flaubert was even trialed for "obscenity" in the novel. Rubbish. 19th century society was weird. I mean, I can't deny that the inventions and books written in the period were remarkable (my favorite century), but the society acted all weird.

I get it how Emma got bored with her husband and wanted something more of her life. But Leon and Rodolphe were horrible in the end. I mean, when Emma was in debt, they both refused to help her, even though she'd spent all the money on them. ( )

I am unsure what to say about this novel, as I formed a number of different views about it as I read and struggle to reconcile them. For about 80 pages, I felt disconnected from the narrative and wondered how I was missing the genius of it. I speculated that I was in the wrong mood, had happened upon a bad translation, or perhaps was reacting against my recent 19th century French literature obsession. I repeatedly got distracted and read non-fiction instead. Then today I spent most of a train journey finally getting beyond page 100, whereupon it imperceptibly became a fascinating, moving, and beautiful reading experience. The remaining pages took no effort at all to read. I then found the introduction somewhat frustrating, as it talked mainly about how complex the novel is without elucidating anything much about it.

What I found most compelling and important was Emma herself, a woman trapped by the lack of interesting choices available to bourgeois ladies at that time. She gets married, has affairs, and buys a lot of stuff on credit, but ultimately it all bores her. One of the most shocking details (still shocking now!) is her near-total lack of interest in motherhood and disregard for her unfortunate daughter. Emma is clearly not suited to the domestic life of a wife and mother and yearns for something, anything else. One of the most memorable images in the book is her dream of running off with a lover; Flaubert imbues it with the two-dimensional feeling of a poster advertising holidays in the sun:

They would take rides in a gondola, they would swing in a hammock; and their life would be yielding and generous like their silk clothes, all warm and starry like the mild nights they would gaze upon. Nevertheless, from the immensity of this future that she conjured, no one particular thing emerged; the days, all of them magnificent, were as alike as waves; and they rolled to the horizon, endless, harmonious, bluish, and bathed in sun.

As well as being a gorgeous piece of writing, this suggests to me that Emma's life hasn't given her the words to express what she really wants. She pursues affairs because they are the only available avenue for (emotional) stimulation. To me, Emma is a clever woman never allowed to exercise her intellect, who never finds companions that interest her, and whose main tragedy is the waste of all her potential. Flaubert evokes her thoughts and feelings with impressive nuance. I found her fascinating, especially as the growing difficulty of her emotional affairs was paralleled with a simultaneous deterioration in financial affairs. The combination of the two was extremely powerful. It seems significant that the two eventually collide, but in the end it is the financial crisis that kills her.

Although Emma dominates the novel, not unreasonably given its title, I also greatly appreciated the parodic moments often allotted to background characters. The speeches at the agricultural show, bickering between the priest and pharmacist, and hierarchy of self-important doctors were all wonderfully snide. Religion in particular does not fare well throughout. I enjoyed Emma's short religious phase, which has a voluptuous materialism about it that makes the priest suspicious. I suppose the introduction opined on the novel's complexity as there are so many subtle and interesting features to it. I'm deducting one star for the effort of the initial pages, although that could well be a temporary reluctance to read melancholic fiction on my part. ( )

I found an audio copy of this book, but the narrator voice is very annoying so I don’t know how far I’m gonna get with it. I am only reading it because many postmodern writers base their stories on this book so many of them that I have no choice but to stop and read the book so I can understand these other writers. It’s a pretty good book and it’s engaging. I like the descriptions, but sometimes it’s too descriptive. If the descriptive passages had more to do with the plot, I would enjoy it more because sometimes my mind starts to wander during these very long descriptions of things that don’t even seem that important although they are described in a lovely poetic way. ( )

This book by Gustave Flaubert is an absolute classic. On the face, it is a simple story about an ordinary, if stupid, couple. Gustave Flaubert used symbolism from the name Bovary (Bovary = bovine) to the blind peasant to depict Emma's moral and intellectual blindness. The blindness extended to Charles Bovary, who could not see the signs of his wife's frustration and adultery.
His description of her turmoil is magnificent, as he depicts the characters - Charles Rodolphe and Leon. Gustave Flaubert's description of the development of her fatal relationships is mesmerizing. He depicts her growing frustration, her fantasies that lead her to a debtor's prison, and the tragic end of Charles and their daughter with ruthless poetry.
This book will never become old: it is also a reminder of the magnificent art of storytelling. Even simple stories can be magnificent. ( )

I received a copy of this book for free from the publisher (Canterbury Classics) for promotional purposes.

What a tragic yet captivating tale!

I added this book to my “To Read” shelf on Goodreads way back in March of 2015. Now 9 years later I finally read it and I’m so glad I did.

There is nothing happy about this story, but it’s beautiful and intriguing in its own way. Immediately upon starting, I was pulled right into the story.

Madame Bovary is such a fascinating character. She’s not particularly likable, and that’s precisely why I liked her. She’s a complicated woman who makes numerous questionable decisions, but I find that makes for the most interesting of characters. I found myself constantly thinking about her and what I would do if I were in her shoes.

For a classic, the writing style is easy to read and follow but still elegant. I didn’t have trouble understanding what was going on. The chapters are fairly short which also helps.

I originally was going to give this book 4 stars, but after a few days of reflection, I decided I had to give it 5 stars. This is a story that will stick with me for a while.

Overall, I loved this story and I can’t believe it took me this long to read it. It was well worth the wait! ( )

I'm glad I read Madam Bovary. I think I was expecting it to be more mannered and anchored in its time. It's a beautifully paced story where I could feel nearly 200 years of readers on the edge of their seats, wondering how this was going to turn out. I wondered too because Emma was at the same time predatory and submissive. Perhaps a modern, libidinous woman? I was distracted by the letter: thinking it would re-appear sooner than it did and thinking that it would blow everything apart - a turning point. But by the time it did re-appear, it was too late, and remarkably had no power. Instead, most of the motive forces in Madam Bovary were all about character. I say most because the death of Charles felt contrived and part of a general tidying-up by way of conclusion.
No doubt it could be seen as a moral tale in its day but again it's character that largely determines fate as in the case of Homais' fatuous triumph.

In my ignorance, I wonder what I'm missing, reading a translation when a writer is known for his style. What thrilled me was the way Flaubert chose what to describe. Thrilled not just as the exquisitely deft touch but also because the details conspired to draw the world into greater meaning.

Madam Bovary made for the kitchen fireplace. With the tips of her fingers she took hold of her dress at the knees, lifted it over her ankles and stretched out her black-booted foot to the fire, above the leg of mutton on the spit. (p. 92)

. Sometimes, the imagery is cinematic:

She made her way up the long drive, stumbling along among the heaps of dead leaves that were scattering in the wind. (p.324)

There were plenty of wonderful turns of phrase

She was as sated with him as he was tired of her. Emma had rediscovered in adultery all the banality of marriage. (p.301)

( )

In Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert explores a number of themes related to 19th century France, including the limitations of the bourgeoisie and the powerlessness of women trapped in a rigid patriarchal society. The novel centers on country doctor Charles Bovary and his wife Emma, the daughter of one of his patients. Emma’s head was filled with ideals of marriage and romance, but real life fell far short. She’s bored with her husband and the limitations of village life, but has no money of her own, nor freedom to explore life outside the village. The one thing Emma does have is good looks and sex appeal, and she begins using it in hopes of finding happiness. This is the start of Emma’s unraveling, made worse by her irresponsible spending on expensive clothing and decorative objects.

For the rest of the novel, Emma makes one bad choice after another. I wish I had felt more sympathy for her; instead she made me want to scream. Much of this is due to Flaubert’s very descriptive narrative style. In the last third of the novel I found myself skimming paragraphs to get to the final climactic scenes. And then, once the ending became obvious, I found myself skimming that, too.

Madame Bovary is a classic and an important work of literature, made more remarkable for having been written by a man. I just wanted to be more “wowed” by it. ( )

Monstrously selfish woman damages everything of value in her life and everyone who loves her. I found it surprisingly modern and easy to read - I practically zoomed through it. The writing is delicious and the humor is wicked. I'm only sorry that it took me so long to get around to reading it. ( )

Rereading with my daughter, which is very fun. I haven't read this book since college, but it's just as moving, beautiful and painful. We're having lots of interesting discussions about what Emma Bovary could have done to address her ennui. ( )

I'm giving this a 5 star review and it may well be the finest book I've ever read, in spite of (or maybe because of) how difficult I found it as an actual experience emotionally. It can be extremely difficult to interact with a work of art where one character seems to capture so much of yourself, in both the positive and the negative sense, what you are and what you aspire to be in a more ideal form; even more so when it's a tale as tragic as this one, where it feels like watching a version of yourself be destroyed (and if this doesn't make it obvious; Madame Bovary, c'est moi). The first part of this book filled me with interest and wonderment at Flaubert's fluid prose, surprisingly minimal by 19th century standards but also so sublime and beautiful in its more fantastic passages, words composed with such wonder and precision that they feel at turns like they were carrying me away; the second part with anxiety knowing the ruin to which Emma's love affairs were leading her while understanding completely; and the third part knocked me sick to my stomach with sadness, the debts mounting, her life collapsing around her and all her dreams defiled one by one until her death and the demise of all those around her (an extra bitter pill when taken with the fact that the most detestable characters, i.e. Homais, Lheureux etc. are the ones who prosper in the end - but such is a social order where such mediocrities flourish). Fully understanding that Emma is a deeply flawed character in so many ways, to me this is a Romanticist tragedy where her fate was practically preordained - one can only hope that in her choice of death over final humiliation and escape from the cruelties of the temporal world she found the transcendence denied her in life, the "azure land" of her fantasies*. A soul-scalding ordeal I can't get out of my head (in the best possible way) and a marvel of literature - would that I could write with a tenth the human empathy, scorn, humour, understanding and eloquence that Flaubert did.

*I understand the common interpretation seems to be of this novel as a critique of romanticism but I feel like this is a somewhat superficial reading by itself which misses so much of how entwined Flaubert's own personality is with this, despite his protestations to the contrary; I agree with Baudelaire/Sartre on Emma as a heroic figure to a good degree, though not entirely with their reasoning as to why. May elaborate further in a future re-review but I'm still trying to process everything I went through in reading this and all the impressions and thoughts it left with me. ( )

[I read the Wall translation, so maybe blame that for my low rating if you disagree with my review.]

I did not especially enjoy this book. I found the tone rather cold and intellectual. Yeah, I know there's a lot of irony in there which is supposed to be distancing, but it wasn't making any interesting points. And irony needs the saving grace of humour or it just gets heavy and bleak; the humour in this book mostly seems to consist of the author saying "check out these idiots!" again and again. He's so busy sneering at Emma Bovary's dreams that he fails to acknowledge what a wonderful time she's probably having shagging her way around the French countryside. The problems the characters experience are hardly situated in the bourgeoisie, nor Emma's attempts to transcend the strictures of her position.

Flaubert seems to have contempt for all of the characters, which means I'm forced to spend three hundred pages in the company of contemptible individuals. He tortures them all in various ways, which he implies they all deserve, and then dispenses with them when their travails are no longer relevant to the point he's trying to make. The way characters just disappear from the novel when he's tired of mocking them shows that for him this is not a story so much as a kind of performance. I do love some books in that mode, but when they're in translation it can feel like having a joke retold by someone who's doesn't share your sense of humour. Or maybe the joke just wasn't that funny.

Or maybe the joke was misogynist. I haven't chased up any feminist readings of Madame Bovary yet, but I didn't trust any of Flaubert's very detailed representation of her thoughts. Are women just dumb, overly sentimental men? Not in my experience, nor in the experience of Flaubert's contemporaries like George Eliot.

I'm tempted to come back to this book in the future in a different translation because it's so famous. But then Charles Dickens is very famous and I have hated the experience of reading him. ( )

This is the most comprehensively hopeless tragedy I have ever read. ( )

This classic tale—first published in 1857—about a dissatisfied woman is a sad story of betrayal and infidelity. When Dr. Charles Bovary marries Mademoiselle Emma Rouault, he's head-over-heels in love. However, his new bride is shallow, selfish, and restless. Her wantonness and ungrateful disregard for her comfortable life as a doctor's wife are her undoing. She scandalously enters into several affairs, shamelessly deceiving her husband and living a secret life well beyond her means. Eventually, this leads to financial ruin and, finally, to suicide. In 1857, this book was considered lurid and outrageous, and the author, Gustave Flaubert, was sued in court (but acquitted) for publishing this compelling work. By today's standards, the story is, unfortunately, relatively commonplace. ( )

Somewhat heavy on the description, but always interesting. I especially liked the way Flaubert captured the disgust she had for her husband, and all the petty ways he annoyed her...and how she grew weary of adultery. My favorite line was about how adultery can be as mundane as marriage.
I picked this up because of "Madame Bovary's Daughter" and was glad I did. To me, she was a sad figure, always searching for something just out of reach, and perhaps not even attainable. Interesting how human nature has not changed much since this was written. ( )

What could I possibly say about Madame Bovary that hasn't been said? It's a classic. As the preface of my edition puts it, it's the 'first sex and shopping novel.'

Gustave takes his time pulling you into the story, but by 150 pages in things are zinging right along. His writing is wonderful throughout the book, but you don't really come to appreciate it until you're fully invested in the characters.

One point of caution: I found the story to be almost 'ho-hum' at certain points. There are too many Emma Bovary's in our culture, now: Carmella Soprano, Betty Friedan, the desperate housewives, that one woman in that movie you saw. But I'm glad I didn't stop! It's worth it to read to the end, to watch the tragedy unfold in such exquisite detail.

But this is perhaps the reason to read the book: it's a blueprint. You read it, and it takes you back to another century, when things were supposedly simpler, and you discover characters experiencing the same human elations and sufferings that we experience today.

There was no 'simpler time.' People are the same everywhere, and always have been. ( )

After having thought about this one a bit more, while Madame Bovary is a great work, I think it was just not a great fit for me when I read it.

As everyone says, the sentence construction is exquisite, and I really like Flaubert’s tactic of matching the prose style to the events of the narrative and the characters’ thoughts (e.g., flowery in romantic moments, quick in dramatic ones, and languid in moments of boredom). Plus it’s clear that the novel has a huge amount of historical importance (as a major father figure in the lineage of realistic fiction). And, of course, Madame Bovary’s character encapsulates so well that romantic drive for further passion, the sense that something better than what you have is always out there, and the harsh reality of the actual in opposition to your ideal. That was all good stuff, really impressive even.

Basically, though, I wanted more development of both the characters and the story. I know, it’s realism, and real life isn’t full of plot twists and epiphanies. Maybe then I just don’t like something so strictly realistic. The characters were who they were (yes, much like ourselves) and they remained trapped in their cycles of suffering. Honestly, that biggest point of character development I saw was Charles Bovary’s utter misery after the death of his wife. Everyone else was more or less static upon reaching adulthood. And similarly with the story, it was easy to guess that Madame Bovary would make the same sort of mistakes over and over throughout the novel, never really learning her lesson, and that is exactly what happened. I will admit that I was caught off guard and impressed by Flaubert‘s description of the death scene—what horror! And I know, this isn’t a whodunnit, and a book isn’t a puzzle that you have to solve, but a little unpredictability is something I like in a book.

Maybe someday I’ll warm up to realism, and I’ll look back at this review and think that I totally missed the point of why Madame Bovary is so great. I think that’s feasible. But for right now, this isn’t really the kind of book I want to read. That said, I’m still impressed enough by the writing to give it four stars.
( )

Well, that was a sad journey. I understand that this is an important novel because it was the first to be written in some certain way, but I’m too poorly educated to grasp what was so groundbreaking about it. In any event, I’m not trying to get a history of literature degree, I just wanted to read a book.

To me, it was a depressing drag. Emma Bovary is an unpleasant and unhappy fool who ruins her own life as well as her pathetic husband’s and daughter’s lives. Besides being a fool she’s a victim but I couldn’t feel sorry for her, she was taken advantage of (by lovers and by a merchant) because of her own self-absorption and selfishness.

I guess the one thing I liked was a glimpse of what it was like to live a middle class life in France in the mid 1800s - in a small town near Paris.

I listened to the audiobook version of this book, and just to complain a bit more (sorry!) I didn’t really care for the voice actor, Kate Reading. She did a fine professional job reading the book, I just didn’t really like her voice.

Scandalous collation of adulterous escapades in "Modern Realist" presentation, though conspicuously omitting their object i.e. the component of actual physical pleasure, which thereafter makes the "psychological investigation" of the "female race" impotent at best. Vague reference to the quality of women as bound (examining this further in the events which compose the narrative, emphasizing this quality by counterpoint) yet in fact partaking in the unswayable male chauvinism which is the real object of the complaint (Madame striking back past the author). For his part, Flaubert's lampooning is sharp to border on contempt, and I even perceive the rough treatment of these characters [pharmacist, chaplain, viscount, madame] would slouch into actual violence were he given the power to act without retribution.

Interesting use of "the Multiple" in the text. Multiple Bovaries (our Madame is the third such one, perceived from the start as a transient actor) Multiple suitors, Multiple coffins for the madame. Innumerable notes of credit. Husband and daughter reduced to noncharacters (0 an even number) and becoming in this way multiple painted props. This is the subject for a thesis (how does it function as a quality of modern writing, say, here, compared to in Kafka). Divesting the attention of the narrative from the single libidinal object/person diffuses some of the Bröntean melodrama, at the very least.

For me, the best section of the novel is the seduction at the farm festival in which swoons and bon mots are interjected with declarations of prizes awarded to livestock.

Unobjectionable prose, though nothing too exciting (in the Steegmuller translation). ( )

Emma. Anna? Emma? Anna. French countryside? Russian countryside? Heroine wants the best that noble life can offer her. Anna has the money; Emma does not. Anna throws herself under a train (MAJOR spoiler alert, sorry). Emma poisons herself with arsenic. #ditto Both can't stand their husbands. Both have affairs. But Emma gets cast aside twice; Anna doesn't (though Vronsky's a jerk IMHO). I hated this book in high school but loved it the second time around. Maybe my tastes have expanded? This book came before ANNA KARENINA; Tolstoy had to have been influenced by it. ( )

In 19th century France, a bored doctor’s wife has affairs with two men, and in the process, she runs up debts she can’t repay. I was as bored as Emma at some points in the book. I had little sympathy for her because her troubles were largely of her own making. I did feel sorry for her naïve husband, and really sorry for the daughter whom both parents largely neglected. Simon Vance’s outstanding narration made the story more interesting than I otherwise would have found it. ( )